XVI

If ever I've stopped dreaming I've stopped living.

I dream because dreams are the predecessors of life’s most beautiful realities.

I dream because there are those who do not know that it is within their possession to dream; and to know but not do is worse than not to know at all.

Dreams are wildfires. They are lily of the valley’s growing through the cracks of a devastated, deserted earth. They are stellar constellations hand-picked and hand-placed by a celestial, eternal, everything deity. Dreams are higher than hope, deeper than desire, stronger than steadfast, headier than the highest intelligence or loftiest philosophy.

Dreams are more. They are exponential. They are high, and mighty, and good, and grand, and everything, and all things, and always and lovelier and lighter and brighter, and better. Dreams are the cornerstones of heaven. They are not to be bought and sold. They are to be trod lightly around, placed in delicate jars of glass and copper wire, hung upon high places and strung with lights of a golden hue. They are to be toasted with good wine, and celebrated with good food, and thought of, and gestured toward, and unashamedly proclaimed in the midst of friends and foes alike.

They are everything.

Dreaming is everything. When you dream you have everything, are everything. Only you can take that privilege away. Only you can lock it up tight. Don’t, dear heart. Don’t fret. Don’t lock. Don’t hide. Dream.